Building management systems have become increasingly sophisticated to provide better control over lighting schemes and to improve energy conservation.
In many industrial and office buildings, lighting is governed by a schedule such that it turns on and off at specific times of day or on specific days. For example, the lights may be configured to turn on at a certain time in the morning, such as 6 a.m. local time, and turn off in the evening, for example at 7 p.m. In some cases, the schedule will provide for different lighting schemes. By way of example, all lights may be fully on during the working hours and off in the night and on weekends, but may be reduced to 50% dimmed status for a few hours in the evening at times when cleaning staff may be present in the building.
In addition to scheduled control of lighting, individual units or sections of units may adjust their dimming levels based on a light sensor present in the area of the units in order to take advantage of natural light in areas near windows to conserve energy. Typically, the light sensor is directly connected to one or more of the units and provides the units with an indication of the natural light levels. The units dim their scheduled levels based on the readings from the light sensor.
Systems exist that allow occupants to override a lighting schedule, for example if an occupant is working late or on weekends during a time when the lights are normally dimmed or off. Typical systems allow an occupant or a building supervisor to input a command to the lighting control system through a touch-tone telephone system, a Web interface, or through some other user input interface. The command may instruct the system to turn on the lights for a particular floor or, if the floor is sufficiently large to be divided into sections, in a particular section of the floor. To the extent that the occupant requires access to more than one section or floor, the occupant instructs the system to turn on the lights in multiple sections or floors. The override command may be associated with a time-out value, such that the scheduled dimming or off status resumes after a preset time period, such as for example 2 hours.
It would be advantageous to provide for improved methods and/or systems for controlling addressable lighting fixtures.